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TCI-TARINA Leadership Team

The Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) is the primary grantee and convening agency responsible for coordinating the TARINA consortium. Dr. Prabhu Pingali, Director of TCI & Chair of the TARINA Steering Committee, assumes overall responsibility for the grant and manages the TCI-TARINA Leadership Team, which provides oversight and direction on grant implementation.

Headed by Dr. Nikhil Raj, Director of TARINA, the TCI-TARINA Leadership Team is comprised of a Project Management Unit (PMU) and a Center of Excellence (CoE), which work together to achieve the grant’s objectives. The PMU is dedicated to handling day-to-day operations, reporting on the progress of technical work, and coordinating and maximizing synergies between consortium partners. The CoE is a multi-disciplinary team of scholars that offers cutting-edge research and capacity for implementing nutrition-sensitive agriculture in the Indian context. Together, the PMU and CoE spearhead the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) component of the grant to assess the impact of field-based interventions and the extent to which objectives are realized.

Dr. Prabhu Pingali is the Chair of the TARINA Steering Committee, Founding Director of TCI, and a Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, with a joint appointment in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at... Read more

Dr. Bhaskar Mittra teaches at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and is the Associate Director of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI). Apart from teaching various courses at TISS, he is responsible for managing India-based operations for TCI. He is the TISS... Read more

Dr. Nikhil Raj is the Director of TARINA, Chair of the TARINA Management Committee, and Ex-Officio Member/Secretary of the TARINA Steering Committee. He is responsible for providing leadership and strategic direction on the implementation of TARINA for promoting diversity in food systems in India... Read more

Dr. Soumya Gupta is an Economist at the TARINA Center of Excellence. Her research interests lie at the intersection of food security, agriculture, and maternal and child nutrition. Since joining TCI-TARINA, her work has primarily focused on research design, project implementation, and evaluation,... Read more

Dr. Shubh Swain is the Program Coordinator, as well as the Gender and Nutrition Specialist for TCI-TARINA. He is a demographer by training and has nearly a decade of work experience in gender, public health, and nutrition in India and Africa. Dr. Swain assists in coordinating and managing the... Read more

Dr. Dhiraj K. Singh is a Researcher and Data Analyst at the TARINA Center of Excellence. Prior to joining TCI-TARINA, he worked for 10 years as a Research Scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).... Read more

Ruchira Boss is an Assistant Program Officer for TCI-TARINA. She is responsible for monitoring and reporting on the progress of ground-level implementation across program locations in Bihar, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh, with a special focus on diversifying agricultural production through... Read more

Nikita Tiwari is an Assistant Program Officer for TCI-TARINA. She is responsible for monitoring and reporting on the progress of ground-level implementation across program locations in Bihar, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh, with a special focus on increasing consumption of nutritious, non-staple... Read more

Naveen Sridhar is an Assistant Program Officer for TCI-TARINA. He is responsible for monitoring and reporting on the progress of ground-level implementation across program locations in Bihar, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh, with a special focus on promoting small ruminants and reducing household... Read more

Saumitra Sinha is a Research Consultant at TCI-TARINA primarily conducting spatial analysis and mapping. He is working with secondary data to classify food systems and is working on an agricultural markets study. Previously at TCI in Ithaca, he derived and mapped district and sub-district level... Read more

Dr. Surabhi Mittal is a Non-Resident Fellow for TCI-TARINA. From August 2016-July 2017, she was the Senior Economist and Coordinator of the TARINA Center of Excellence, as well as a Member of the TARINA Management Committee. Prior to joining TCI-TARINA, she worked for six years as the Senior... Read more